News and financial services company Reuters will outsource almost its entire internal IT operations to Fujitsu under a 10-year deal valued at £500 million ($1 billion).

Reuters will transfer more than 300 staff and 200 contractors to Fujitsu as part of the deal, which includes desktop PC maintenance and e-mail services for 17,500 employees worldwide, a Reuters spokeswoman said.

Reuters expects the deal to reduce its annual IT costs by 20 to 30 percent, the spokeswoman said, although she would not provide actual figures.

"It frees up a lot of resources to concentrate on providing for our customers rather than our internal IT," she said.

Starting next week, Fujitsu will provide IT services using its own equipment, allowing Reuters to reduce the number of servers and other equipment that it maintains internally, the spokeswoman said.

Reuters has call centers that support its IT operations in places such as London and Singapore. Under the deal, Fujitsu will take over that support from its own call centers in Lisbon and Kuala Lumpur.

Reuters has a global network of offices. While best know for its news wire, the company is also a major supplier of real-time financial data.

In May, Canada's Thomson Corp. announced an £8.7 billion bid to acquire Reuters. The deal has yet to be finalized.